Exploiting Hollywood 1980

After dreaming about two movies in a row, Ronald asked David Simkins to prepare some presentation boards for the studio executives. Since he had written a script and was interested in joining the ranks of producers, he should start to get familiar with these tasks.

David Simkins, who had been given more work for no reason, also had to read the scripts that were still being sent to the company. While working overtime every day, he felt full of motivation to strive.

Ronald himself focused his main energy on promoting "Dirty Dancing". He wanted to use this movie as the first movie produced by Daydream Pictures to be released.

After turning on the computer at home, Ronald inserted the floppy disk. After a noise and waiting, the interface of the WordStar editing software appeared on the screen. He created a new file and began to write the selling points and difficulties required to promote the script.

"Advantages:

Small investment, fixed audience, low marketing cost, no need to invite famous movie stars, you can find directors who shoot musicals or youth films to guide.

Disadvantages: The budget is not enough to invite movie stars, and the distributor may have concerns. If the other party is willing to invest more resources, the script can also be modified to suit the star's performance.

Best sales target:

Disney's Touchstone Pictures..."

"Squeak..." The dot-matrix printer printed out the document, Ronald picked up the pen and modified a few places, and then put it into the document archive marked with the "Dirty Dancing" project.

...

What Ronald didn't expect was that the first person to see his "Dirty Dancing" sales display board was not Touchstone's Katzenberg, nor his agent Niceta, but the producer of the "Kung Fu Kid" series, Weintraub.

"What is this? Your new project?" Weintraub condescended to Ronald's humble apartment. This was the first time he took the initiative to come to Ronald's house to discuss things.

Before talking about business, he saw several display boards that Ronald had placed on the wall.

"Ah, yes. My script assistant is very good. This is also a script he has taken a fancy to. I just bought the production rights from the original producer."

Ronald simply turned over a few display boards and put them on the table. "This is a script that is aimed at teenage women as the main market. I plan to produce it with a small budget of less than five million."

"Such a small production?" When Weintraub heard that it was a small production, he immediately wanted to increase the budget and grab the project that Ronald had taken a fancy to.

"Put it in MGM/United Artists for distribution. I will match you with five million and make up a budget of ten million as the next project of "Moonlight Temptation". How about it?"

"This movie is from a female perspective. Teenage men may not like it very much, so I didn't want to use celebrities, and it was only aimed at that relatively small audience. Small investments are easier to get back."

"It just so happens that I came to you today to talk about getting back the money." Weintraub took Ronald's "Dirty Dancing" script and read it, then motioned Susan to hand the two documents to Ronald.

"These are two invitations to adapt The Karate Kid into a video game. You have the property rights to the characters of Miyagi-sensei and Daniel-san, as well as a share of the profits from the second part of The Karate Kid. This contract requires your consent."

Susan Akins, Weintraub's mistress and assistant, took out two documents and handed them to Ronald.

Ronald took them and saw that one was a development contract from ATS Co., Ltd. This is a game development company in Japan that specializes in making games for home game consoles for Nintendo in Japan.

"Is this NES game console the most popular little gray box now?" Ronald looked at the project plan. This game was developed for home game consoles, which need to be connected to a TV and played with a controller.

"Yes, the American version of the game console is like that. Here is also a Japanese version of the game console." Susan pointed to a picture on a page in the plan and said to Ronald.

"Hmm? Isn't this the Famicom?"

"Famicom? The name you gave it is easy to understand." Susan smiled, "The other one is a computer game development license."

Ronald picked up the second authorization letter, which was a game development license for new computer models, Atari ST, and Commodore Aiga.

"I know Commodore, it's a game console with a keyboard. Didn't Atari go bankrupt?"

"Your information is old news. After the reorganization, Atari is mainly a computer brand. ST is their new computer model. This computer has 512k of memory and can be equipped with IDI devices. Many people in the music industry like to use it.

Commode's new model Aiga computer does not have a game controller. Many animation companies use it to color paintings. These are computers used by many professionals."

"Then why do you still make games for them?"

"People always need entertainment. Isn't it great to be able to use the computer for work to entertain?"

"Hmm..." Ronald only used that old personal computer to write. He didn't expect that computers have developed so fast now. In addition to composing and painting, they can also be used to play games. "Should I update my computer as well?"

He quickly found the place where he needed to sign and signed his name. He handed it back to Susan.

"Your script..." Weintraub, who was next to him, had already quickly flipped through Ronald's "Dirty Dancing" script, and he hesitated to speak.

"Is it not suitable for large-scale production? It doesn't matter. I can slowly find investors. Do you have any ideas about releasing this film? The production budget is not very high."

"Well...what the heck, I'm still at MGM/United Artists, where we're still fighting various pre-merger factions. We'd better focus on 'Moonlight' now."

"That's right, it doesn't matter. I'll look at a few others."

Ronald looked at Weintraub. His main focus now was on managing a huge company and integrating internal human resources. He must not be as interested in such small-market, small-production works as before. .

"This script is really well written." After Weintraub put down the script, Susan picked it up and flipped through it.

"Why, do you like this script too?" Ronald didn't expect that Susan Akins liked the script very much.

"Yeah, which girl hasn't imagined that she can dance well, partner with the boy who dances best, and win the envy of everyone?"

"How about you, do you want to try to distribute this movie?" Ronald said half-jokingly, seeing how fascinated she was.

Weintraub pulled Susan over and whispered a few words quickly in her ear.

"I'm sorry, Ronald. Jerry's focus is on the MGM business, and my main job is to assist him. I'm afraid I won't be able to devote more energy to distributing this movie."

Susan Aikins stated to Ronald the reasons why she could not help distribute the film. She slowly put down the script, "However, I really like this movie. If you have the chance, you must make it."

"Of course, I plan to find a distributor and start the project, and then find a director." Ronald looked at Susan, who was about the same age as himself, and thought that although this woman was already quite old, she still had a bright girl's heart.

…

"Just put it here." Ronald asked two door-to-door installation workers to come in. A new computer that looked very similar to his original computer was placed on the desk.

"Mr. Li, this is our ib company's new product, pbsp; 286, which uses the latest Intel 80286 CPU, 640kb memory, 1.2 high-capacity double-sided 3.5-inch floppy disk, and a 20-inch hard drive."

Ronald looked at the characters displayed on the screen. They were no longer the green color of the old monitors, but white characters.

"This monitor looks good."

"Yes, this is a 256-color true color display." The installation engineer took the keyboard and entered the c drive.

"Is this a hard drive?" Ronald looked at the letter "C" on the drive letter. The first two drives, A and B, were floppy disks.

"Yes," the young engineer typed, and then the monitor jumped and a blue and white interface appeared.

"This is the latest Microsoft Windows. You can use this device and mouse to select files and other operations."

Ronald took the mouse and naturally double-clicked the close symbol on the window, and the file manager was closed.

"Ah, yes, double-clicking can..." The engineer also wanted to introduce.

Ronald double-clicked again, opened the C drive interface, and dragged the files in the floppy drive into this window.

"Yes, it seems that Mr. Li has used it before, so that he can copy files."

"Thank you," Ronald handed over a $20 tip and treated the two installation engineers to a Coke.

After sitting there and playing Windows for a while, Ronald felt bored. The system seemed familiar, but it was not fun.

He finally quit and opened the WordStar software using the DOS character interface. Hard drives are indeed much faster and less noisy than floppy disks. Ronald opened a new document and began writing his summary of feedback on the "Dirty Dancing" pitch.

"It seems that older women also like the story of the script very much. Maybe we can use this advantage to win the favor of female senior executives in the company..."